Autumn has arrived… kind of. 80 degrees isn’t exactly what I consider fall weather, but it didn’t stop me from wearing my plaid flannel to go pick apples at the annual festival at the local orchard. Normally we wait until after the festival to get the apples at a discounted price, but when you have toddlers you have to compromise – and the idea of a $5/per adult admission for the Little Mr to get to see goats, play in corn mazes, take a trip on the hay ride, etc seemed more worth it than not. We had such a great afternoon that he fell asleep in the less than 10 minute ride home, so we drove around and around looking at houses for nearly 45 minutes just to let him get his nap out. And now I’m left with probably 20-25 pounds of apples that I need to figure out what to do with. Canning probably won’t happen this year, so I’m thinking lots and lots of baked pies and crisps over the next few weeks.

This changing of seasons is marred, however, by the hole in my heart that is my dog, Molly. After months and months of the decision being in the back of my mind, the last month has really taken it from something I needed to consider to something I had to make a final decision on. Her quality of life just wasn’t there anymore, and it killed me to have to make that call, but ultimately she was suffering and it was selfish of me to let her continue as she was. She was 13 years old and a wonderful companion to me for half of that time. My routines are all messed up – there isn’t anyone to let outside in the mornings or before bed, no one cleaning up food behind the toddler, no one following me around from room to room while I try to clean. Coming home from the vet felt… depressingly lonely. She wasn’t there to greet me at the door. Just emptiness. Sigh. I’m going to miss that furry, sweet thing.

My 95 year old grandfather passed away over the weekend. I can’t say it was unexpected – his quality of life deteriorated significantly this last year or so, but these last weeks it all became much worse and much harder on him. His mind was sharp, but his body was starting to give out on him. Which, of course, bodies do when they’ve been on this earth for 95 years. Tuesday he told my uncle he was “done”, and by Saturday morning my dad was rushing in to spend time with him in his last moments. I’m told he hadn’t moved from the couch in several days and kept his eyes closed and was not engaging in conversation.

I’ve cried a fair bit, I admit. Despite knowing it was coming, and being “okay” with it (meaning that it was for the best that his suffering and pain ended), it’s still hard to not cry when I think of him. We have a photo ornament of my grandfather holding the baby when he was 2 weeks old. We’ve been working with the kiddo to point to me when we say “mama” and to the husband for “dada” and to himself for “Declan.” He never points to himself. Except yesterday, he pointed to the ornament of grandpa holding him and did it. And I about lost it.

My natural urge, when it comes to grief, is to bake and craft. I seek out those things that comfort me. Maybe there’s some symbolism there in the fact that life is varied and full of change and, generally, baking means the same results with the same recipe (and, similarly, the same knit stitch will produce the same stitch result). There’s a bit of meditation in the kitchen or behind the needles. It’s where I go when I need to think. To take some “me” time and reset.

But there’s no time to grieve when you have a one year old under foot. They neither know or understand what is going on outside of their little bubble. They don’t care that mommy needs to be in the kitchen alone to bake and cry. Or to sit in a corner with some yarn and knit and think. Which makes this whole grief thing impossible. How do I take time to grieve when I’m catering to a toddler? How do I take care of myself and my own needs?

I’m sneaking in knitting every chance I can get. 5 stitches here, 10 minutes there… whatever I can squeeze in to be that comfort I need right now. It’s not ideal, of course, but it kind of works.

A year ago today this kid made his grand appearance. This last year has been rough with many highs and lows, but we survived. We’ve all survived. But I’m especially proud of myself and that survival thing.

This kid is officially one and we celebrated with Peter Rabbit and carrot cake. I’ve promised the husband that I won’t go so overboard on the future. I really couldn’t help it, though – Peter Rabbit is just about my favorite kids book ever and Declan really loves the bunnies in the books we have and the one I knit him. And, truthfully, I didn’t really go THAT overboard – I had probably 100 different ideas for food and whatnot and ended up keeping all of that simple. So, really, he should thank me for not doing all the things I wanted to do.

Peter Rabbit will be making an appearance from now on every Easter, especially since we don’t celebrate the religious aspect of the holiday, so I can’t wait to dig all these decorations back out next Spring (see, it can’t count as going overboard if you’re going to actually re-use the decorations every year for a holiday, right?). The bunny cake was… eh. I don’t understand how to bake with these fancy pans – the instructions say to make the sides of the cake higher than the middle… but, hello, gravity called: they’re breaking up with your silly directions. I don’t know, maybe I’m doing something wrong? The one half of the bunny had broken ears, and there was no way I was going to be able to shave the sides down to piece this thing together to make the 3D cake I imagined. But, you know? I don’t even care – it looks damn adorable sitting on a bed of kale on my cake plate regardless.

With so much rain and dreary days it hasn’t much felt like summer on the days I’m home. Today, though… today is different. Today is officially a summer day. Hot, sunny, with the sun beating on your back. Finally I could blow up the baby pool and go outside with the Little Mr and play. He wasn’t much interested in sitting in the pool, and that’s probably my fault because I didn’t fill it up this morning for the water to warm until now, but it turns out he really wanted to play in the sprinkler setting on our hose attachment. So we sat there while he ran his hands through and picked up the hose and waved it around, splashing himself in the face and then getting angry about it and throwing it back down on the ground. Then it was back inside for something cold – frozen pureed pear in a mesh feeder for him, and coconut cream pie ice cream for me.

The first house I remember growing up in was this little ranch on a cul-de-sac. The front of the house was lined with hedges, there was a crab apple tree in one part of the front yard and a birch tree, maybe – I don’t remember what it was, actually, in the opposite corner. If you were looking at the house from the street, my bedroom was on the very left corner, with two windows – one looking out to the street, another looking at the white house next to us. All of our yards were fenced in, and if you looked down between our two houses, right in front of the fence, there were these “snowballs” growing. I didn’t know them as anything other than snowballs for the longest time. I remember watching them each year and being fascinated by them and how the ants all loved to climb and eat at them.

We moved houses when I was in middle school and my mom dug up the plant and took them with us. I never really knew why, I just figured she loved them and didn’t want to let them go. For years and years they grew at my mom’s house, right next to the foundation. And then, a few years ago, she decided she didn’t want them anymore. I’m not sure why, other than maybe just wanting to do something different with her flower beds. So we dug them up, and I brought them home with me. I planted them in the front flower bed, not realizing that they needed a lot more sun than the front bed gets. They almost died but I managed to rescue them in just enough time to move them to another location.

A relative of mine is big into genealogy, and she likes to post up stories occasionally about my great grandmother (who I didn’t really know). Do you know why we had white snowballs (peonies)? Because those were my great grandmother’s favorite flower. She’s the one that called them snowballs. Years ago I was determined to plant roses in honor of my grandmother (Her middle name was Rose). I wanted to have something in my garden in honor of her and to remind me of her. I’m not, apparently, the only one who felt planting flowers was a great way of honoring loved ones and my mother had already beaten me to it years ago with these peonies.

Welcome

Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On